A weather band radio operates to receive broadcasts of weather-related, and other, information. A listener of the weather band radio is provided with the information contained in the broadcasts. By listening to the broadcasts, the listener of the weather band radio is provided with early warning of, e.g., weather anomalies, such as imminent, severe weather. The listener, by being given early warning of the weather anomaly, is able better to take appropriate action to guard against dangers associated with the weather anomaly.
Generally, governmental bodies operate the radio networks from which the weather-related, or other, information is broadcast. For instance, in the United States, the National Weather Service (NWS), an agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States Department of Commerce, overseas the weather radio broadcast network. The broadcasts provided by the National Weather Service first commenced in the late 1950s. Subsequently, the service provided by the National Weather Service was named the NOAA Weather Radio (NWR). The broadcasts are transmitted in the very high frequency (VHS) radio band that extends between 162.400 MHz and 162.550 MHz. Seven channels are defined within the allocated frequency band. Transmitting stations located in various geographical regions of the country broadcast weather-related, and other, information.
The types, and content, of the broadcast information is technology dependent. As communication technologies have evolved, the content of the broadcasts of changed. In the 1960s, for instance, the NWR broadcast a single tone at 1050 Hz followed by a message relating to a potentially dangerous event. The single tone is sometimes referred to as a warning alarm tone. Conventional weather band radios are sometimes constructed to detect the warning alarm tone and, in response, to cause the weather band radio to aurally, or otherwise, annunciate the detected tone. As communication technologies evolved to permit the introduction of digital communication techniques, in the 1980s, the National Weather Service implemented a broadcast scheme that includes digital codes. Broadcast of a tone that alerts the existence of a weather, or other, anomaly together with a digital code has formed, since such time, the national standard of broadcast by the National Weather Service.
Weather band radio receivers are constructed now to detect the digital messages that are broadcast. The digital codes are formatted according to a standardized format, referred to as NWR Specific Area Message Encoding (NWR SAME).
An NWR SAME message includes various fields. The fields of the message include a field that identifies the geographic region, or area, associated with an accompanying alert message. Many conventional weather band radios are capable of detecting the digital message and the contents of the field that identifies the geographic region. If desired, the radio operates to generate an alert only when the field of the NWR SAME message identifies a geographic region of interest to the radio. To provide such operation, however, the radio must be personalized so that the radio becomes associated with a geographical area, i.e., the geographical area of interest. The identifier forms a code forming a six-digit sequence. The code identifies an area, e.g., by its state, its county, and portion of the county. While a conventional weather band radio provides for user entry of the code, or even a mneumonic associated with the code, existing weather band radios generally do not provide an easy manner by which to identify multiple geographical areas of interest and, if provided, multiple coded sequences or associated mneumonics must be entered.
If the weather band radio is to be operated close to a geographical boundry, such as close to a county or state line, the listener of the weather band radio might well have an interest in being alerted to anomaly conditions in more than one geographical area. Or, if the weather band radio is mobile or is to be positioned at successive times at different locations throughout a region, being alerted to anomaly conditions in more than one geographical areas might also be of interest.
If a manner could be provided by which better to facilitate operation of a radio to annunciate anomaly conditions identified in more than one geographical area, improved listener acceptance of the radio and improved usability of the radio would be provided.
It is in light of this background information related to annunciating radios, such as weather band radios, that the significant improvements of the present invention have evolved.